The first ‘graveyard’ of nuclear waste, which is about 1,500 meters underground, has recently been closed to humans for 100,000 years to decay.
FinlandThe $4 billion Onkalo project consists of a 6-kilometer network of underground canals designed to store 6,500 tons of this land. uranium waste produced by near nuclear power a plant.
The country is a leader in nuclear powerand its reactors boast a life expectancy of more than 90 percent.
Finland’s waste management agency, Posiva, introduced this in 2019, explaining that nuclear waste will be stored in watertight containers.
By 2026, Posiva plans to bury 3,250 copper scraps, each 17 feet long and containing two tons of spent fuel.
The steel will be transported to 230-foot-long tunnels and surrounded by bentonite clay for permanent storage.
Each well will be lowered into a vertical pit within the drainage canals, which have 30 to 40 wells each.
When all the holes in the road will be filled with cans and separated with bentonite clay, the canals will be filled with clay and sealed.
Finland’s $4 billion Onkalo project is located on the island of Olkiluoto
The underground facility consists of 6 kilometers of tunnels, which will soon house 6,500 tons of the country’s uranium produced by the nearby nuclear plant.
The fuel, which contains plutonium and other nuclear fission products, will remain radioactive for thousands of years.
However, wrapped in two-inch-thick copper, surrounded by bentonite clay, and embedded in ancient granite, the debris poses no risk of contamination by future generations, according to Posiva.
Originally a research facility, Onkalo became the first nuclear waste storage facility after Posiva decided to use it to build a more advanced nuclear weapon.
“Many countries using nuclear power have medium and small-scale waste disposal facilities, but the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel has not been initiated anywhere,” Posiva said on his website.
Currently, the most commonly used nuclear fuel is stored in large, secure tanks in dedicated facilities.
Another option is to cover the waste in glass and bury it about 500 meters underground, a method called Deep Geological Disposal.
Although effective, this method carries risks due to the long duration and the possibility of unexpected geological changes that could disrupt the preservation of thousands of years.
Posiva said his tunnels and containers were designed to withstand earthquakes, future one-million-year glaciers, and depressions caused by continental ice sheets.
For more than 40 years, Posiva studied and tested the rock near the Olkiluoto nuclear plant, making sure that even if one or more barriers fail, radiation will not enter the environment.
Onkalo has a circular entryway, straight lines, central canals, terminal areas, technical rooms, medical facilities and a staff canteen.
Posiva, the waste management agency, built a tunnel to store spent nuclear fuel to prevent radiation from harming the environment.
The metal will be lowered into a vertical pit in the disposal canal, which has about 30 to 40 holes.
When all the holes have a canister and the cans are separated with bentonite clay, the entire tunnel is filled with clay and sealed.
The roads are too narrow to carry the cans to final storage, so they will be brought to the work site using a forklift from the gas station located above where the cans are stored until they are ready to be placed on the road. .
The cans will be picked up by robotic vehicles and placed in holes where they will be stored for the next 4,000 generations.
By the time the spent fuel is disposed of, Posiva said only one-thousandth of its original radiation will remain, but this fraction is still a very high emission.
“The fraction of radioactive material that contains fuel has a very long life, which requires isolation from the environment,” Posiva said.
‘For this reason, the final disposal cans are designed to be strong and neutral in their final destination so that the emission of used fuel can be reduced to a level that is not harmful to the environment.’
The tunnel is located 1,480 meters below the west coast of Finland and will be sealed for 100,000 years from 2025.
The bars are made of copper and are filled with bentonite to prevent them from coming out of the surrounding rock.
The copper and metal scraps will be wrapped in bentonite clay and placed in a 1,410- to 1,800-year-old cloud – also known as a natural barrier.
The agency said that even if the canal is closed next year, it will continue to expand and dig more areas for installation and central canals, making the completion of the project possible until the 2120s.
After each process is completed and filled with used oil, it will be closed and when the final dump is made, the underground connections including the motor tunnel, shafts and test holes will be closed.
The researchers explained that radiation levels will drop to one hundredth of their original levels within the first year.
The researchers attempted the last dump in 2019, when two cans were placed in holes buried inside the tunnel.
Each hole is separated by rock and is approximately 26 feet deep and 5.7 feet in diameter.
They were filled with bentonite – a soft, plastic clay made from volcanic ash and sedimentary rock – and sealed with a concrete plug.
Posiva built an area on top of the canal to store used oil containers and put them into the canal using a crane.
The researchers set up 500 sensors that monitor whether radio-emitting devices have penetrated the rock.
The rock at Olkuluoto’s final site was carefully analyzed to look for any weak, unstable chemical and water channels that could carry radioactive materials to the surface.
Their findings showed that the material would not harm the environment when placed in a box, prompting the company to begin building the tunnels the following year.
Posiva began his final tests on August 30 to ensure the tunnel was ready for final disposal and said at the time it would take several months to complete the project.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Posiva for comment and to confirm an official date for the channel to be published.
